


Reflection

by domini_moonbeam



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Confession, Get Together, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Husbands, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Sexual Assault, Tumblr Prompt, lots of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:08:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28830171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domini_moonbeam/pseuds/domini_moonbeam
Summary: It took Nicky a long time to realize the depth of his feelings for Joe. Luckily time is on their side.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 34
Kudos: 272





	Reflection

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place almost directly after the movie.

They had been arguing since they got back to the safehouse. Nicky had stayed to keep an eye on Booker while the others went for supplies, no one ready to talk about what Booker had done and how the rest of them were supposed to deal with it. Nicky had not asked Booker why he did what he did—feeling like he’d heard enough about it already, but Booker started talking, explaining how hard immortality had been and how Nicky couldn’t understand.

Nicky bit back any retort and nodded, trying to see this only from his brother’s point of view and not sour it with his own pained heart. Nicky had accomplished many impossible tasks in his life but this one was beyond him.

“Then why tell me?” Nicky snapped, more bitter than he wanted to admit. Booker had betrayed them, all of them, but Nicky was mostly angry that he had betrayed Joe. The two had been friends, close, closer than friends usually were. But that still hadn’t been enough for Booker—not enough to keep him from reaching for death at the cost of all others.

Booker bared his teeth at him in a sneer. “You can’t understand.”

Nicky rolled his eyes at that. “Childish…” he muttered in Italian, fully aware Booker understood it.

“You don’t feel the pain of life because you never fucking lived!” Booker snapped.

Nicky stared, actually surprised. Of all the dumb shit he’d heard this man say over the last two hundred years—this was new.

“You think because I have Joe that I should be content to live like this? To never die? To—”

Nicky hadn’t been this close to killing Booker in a century. He closed the space between them and shoved the heels of his palms into the man’s chest, jarring him from his words and driving him a step back. He blinked those watery eyes in surprise at Nicky.

“You do not have him,” he yelled before he could think clearly. He had spent the entirety of his immortal life with Yusuf. They were inseparable, connected by fate and death and life. Nicky could not breathe without the other man in the world. He knew it like a fact—like the _only_ fact. They would die together one day, because they simply could not exist without the other. “You get to touch him, to taste him, to hold him, and you have no idea who he is. You don’t know anything, Booker. You _do not_ have him.”

Booker stared and Nicky realized his mistake even before he knew what the mistake had been, because there was something shining in Booker’s eyes—something delighted and bloodthirsty. “Get to?” he quoted and his grin grew cruel. “Jesus Christ, Nicky. After a millennia you finally got a hard on for him?”

Nicky steeled his features and turned to leave.

Booker followed, catching his arm to pull him back. He tried to shake him off but Booker’s fingers dug in. “Tell me. Did you always want him and you’ve just been a coward all these centuries, or were you really that slow? Did you only realize it when I had him?”

“You don’t have him.”

“I have more than you.” Booker laughed low, going into French. “Have you ever even fucked anyone, Nick? Ever been fucked? What the hell do you think you’re going to offer?”

Nicky tried again to shake him off, even through his shirt he felt like that touch was burning him but it was nothing compared to the holes his words carved. “Let go,” he hissed instead of answering.

Booker didn’t let go, in fact his grip tightened. “Maybe you’re just jealous, Nick. Or maybe you just want to get laid.” He turned him then and Nicky felt a jab of shock shoot right through him when Booker twisted his arm behind his back and shoved him forward, bending him over the table and pressing himself against his ass.

His skin felt bruised all over in revulsion. “Get off,” he bit out, resisting the urge to move. If he moved at all, he was going to kill Booker. How would he explain that? Joe would want to know what happened and he had never been able to lie to Joe.

Booker laughed, louder this time. “Word choice, Nick…” He rubbed his semi-hardon against Nicky’s ass.

_Don’t kill him, he’s family. Don’t kill him, he’s with Joe. Fuck_. “Booker…”

“If you just want to get laid—”

* * *

Booker hadn’t meant to snap like that. He and Joe were rough with each other but that was different, that was mutual. This was wrong and he knew it. But the moment he heard it—the moment he realized Nicky had romantic feelings for Joe—some tenuous piece of his sanity snapped. What Booker had with Joe was comforting at times and at the very least, exciting when it happened. They had been screwing around for almost as long as he’d been with the group and yet he’d never been close to him like Nicky. Even without the sexual relationship, those two were bound up in each other. They traveled together, fought in unison, and shared secret smiles and looks. For fucks sake, Joe spooned Nicky most nights. And every time the family took time apart, they went off together.

He had tried to poke fun at them, to get Joe to go with him instead in the early decades, but it was impossible. Nothing phased them and nothing parted them. They had always been two halves, but this? If Nicky wanted this part too? It wasn’t fair. None of them should get that kind of peace. To be in love with another immortal? It wasn’t fair.

He pushed hard at his grip on Nicky’s arm, hearing his shoulder popping out of the socket and enjoying the pained groan of the man under him. Nicky did not deserve peace. He had done nothing but quietly watch them all this time.

“If you just want to get laid—”

The press of a barrel to his head stopped Booker mid-sentence.

He hadn’t even heard them come back.

He glanced to his side at Joe. Those dark eyes full of fury at yet another betrayal.

“Booker…” Andy’s voice was almost calming in comparison, somewhere in the room behind him.

Joe didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. If Booker didn’t let go of Nicky in the next two seconds, he would pull that trigger. Booker almost wanted to make him do it. But that look in his eye and the sound of Andy’s voice brought him back to himself enough to feel a wave of shame at how he was behaving. He let go of Nicky’s arm and raised his hands. He even gave a shrug and a grin when he stepped back, unpinning him from the table. Joe followed him with the gun.

Nicky rose, but didn’t stay to accuse him of anything or even turn and hit him. He just walked out the back of the house into the night.

“Joe,” Andy said, voice still endlessly even, almost cold now. “You’ll get blood on the furniture.”

Still, he didn’t move, staring at Booker like he’d betrayed him in a way he’d never imagined. Booker realized he had. He didn’t mind betraying Nicky, he’d never liked Nicky’s calm or the claim he had over Joe. But he had liked Joe, not just for the sex but for the friendship. He dropped his arms to his sides and waited for the bullet because they had been friends and he had known all along how Joe felt about Nicky, and he had laid hands on him anyway.

“Joseph,” Andy said. “If you do not go now, you will not catch him,” she reasoned.

Joe had tears in his eyes but he lowered the gun. When he turned and stormed out, Booker knew that no matter what happened between Nicky and Joe, he had ruined something between Joe and himself. He would be lucky to repair the friendship with time, but he would never get any of those extra benefits again.

Joe stormed out and after a few seconds the door slammed at the back of the house. He sagged only to gasp when a knife jabbed in his side. Andy grabbed his arm with her other hand, steering him around and dumping him in a chair. He groaned, clutching at his bleeding side. “I know,” he whined.

“Start talking,” Andy said, cleaning the knife on his pants before going to grab a bottle of wine.

He clutched at the already healing wound. “I got nothing to say.”

* * *

Nicky’s shoulder popped back into the socket by the time he was out the door. He was grateful for the dark, wanting nothing but to disappear into it. He was a fool and now Booker of all people knew it. He’d have to tell Joe, not just because he’d walked in on it and would ask what had happened—assuming Booker hadn’t already made something up. Or, god forbid, told the truth. No. Nicky would have to tell Joe because he couldn’t let Booker or anyone else know something about him that Joe did not.

Would this ruin them? Would it make things awkward? Would it change their rhythm, their casual affection, their lives? Fuck.

Nicky ran through the old orchard behind the house, to the edge of the property where it bumped into a field. The moon was bright and he let it laugh at him, sitting down. Let it laugh. Someone should.

He closed his eyes and waited, legs bent with his arms resting on his knees. Joe was coming and for the first time in centuries, it felt like he was his executioner again. Nicky had known where they stood in that first century. They had been enemies, rivals, killers. Even when they became wary allies, accepting their immortality and how it bound them to one another, they had kept a respectful distance. It had taken decades to honestly trust each other not to kill them when they got the chance.

And then there had been that night, when Yusuf touched his hand gently and brought it up slowly. He could still see it in his memory as clear as the field in front of him. Yusuf had kissed his knuckles—knuckles that had struck him countless times in the past, knuckles infinitely dirty with murder. He had looked at Nicky that night, almost seven hundred years ago, asking. And when he leaned in, his lips brushing Nicky’s, Nicky had stepped back. He had shaken his head once, his pulse in his throat and tears in his eyes, and Yusuf had nodded understanding and never tried again. Nicky had been so grateful for that understanding, but so hurt by his own reaction. He had never wanted anyone physically before—cringed way from even the casual affection of strangers. He had been a priest and had resigned himself gladly to a life without. He never expected that to change.

And Booker was right. He was a fool who only realized it had changed after Joe started up his occasional trysts with Booker. Joe had had a few romances over the centuries, but it wasn’t until around the time of Booker that Nicky realized he wanted more of him. He had written himself off at first, certain he was being jealous or selfish, but it didn’t fade. And then he had deceived himself into waiting until whatever was going on between Joe and Booker ended. And then, even when he knew what was between them wasn’t deeper than friends with a passionate affair, he still hadn’t been able to bring himself to say anything. Because Booker had been right about that too—what did he have to offer?

He muttered a curse in Italian, dropping his head into his arms.

* * *

Joe started running when he reached the edge of the overgrown yard and the orchard. He didn’t even have to think about which way Nicky had gone. He knew. He just had to follow his instincts. They had spent nearly a thousand years together. He didn’t have to track Nicky—if he just walked he would go in the same direction.

His mind kept playing the same moment over and over, walking into the house and hearing the scuff of the table and Nicky’s voice low and angry, grinding out the words, _“Get off.”_

Joe had put down the groceries and stalked through the house. There was no reason he could think of for Nicky to say that—to be in a position to say that. He didn’t rough-house with anyone but Joe. He didn’t like being touched by anyone but Joe or Andy, and Andy was with him.

Booker’s laugh had sent a chill down Joe’s spine. It was so angry. _“Word choice, Nick…”_

_“Booker…”_ Nicky had sounded like he was about to kill him. When Joe came around the corner into the room, he half-expected to see the two in a fight and Nicky about to cut Booker in two. But that wasn’t what he walked in on. Nicky was bent over a table with Booker grinding against his ass, his arm bent up behind his back.

_“If you just want to get laid—”_ Joe had almost killed him. The only thing that had stopped him was the niggling worry that he could have misunderstood. Nicky had been off around Booker for decades. They didn’t like each other, or at least that was what he thought. But his own relationship with Booker was strange, their own sex was often rough. But Nicky had never been interested in sex with anyone. Joe would know. He would tell him. Even if he didn’t, Joe would know because they were never apart for long and he _knew_ his Nicolo. But he also didn’t want to believe Booker would do something like that. Had Booker assumed that since he and Joe did things like that, that it would be the same with Nicky? Had Joe somehow laid the groundwork for that moment? Had he betrayed Nicky by hesitating to pull the trigger?

He skidded to a stop at the edge of the orchard, in the full glow of the moon, and turned like a magnet, to the right—to see Nicky sitting in the grass, face in his arms.

He ran to him, sliding to his knees in front of him. He didn’t hesitate to touch him, his hands gliding over his arms and his head. “Nicolo,” he breathed, relief and horror in his voice.

He touched Nicky’s arm, the one that had been bent behind his back, running his hand from shoulder to wrist. He knew there wasn’t anything wrong with it anymore—even if it had been broken it would have healed. But he still touched, like he could rub away where Booker’s hands had been.

“I’m sorry,” Nicky said in Arabic, head raising to look up at him and moonlight dancing in his teary eyes.

Joe swore under his breath and shook his head. He touched Nicky’s head and kissed the top of it. Not unlike times when he’d lost him on battlefields and then finally found him again. “No. You have nothing to apologize for.”

Nicky sighed and looked away.

Joe caught his face in his hands, turning it up to him. “What happened? What…” Joe dragged a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Nicolo.” He wanted to beg him to tell him he had misunderstood, that he had interrupted something and whatever it was, it was something Nicky was okay with. But he couldn’t ask that. He couldn’t risk making it harder for Nicky to tell him the truth.

“I’m sorry,” Nicky said again, swallowing hard and staring fixed at Joe’s mouth so as not to meet his gaze. “I made a mistake.”

“The mistake was not yours,” Joe pressed, horrified.

Nicky shook his head. “I said some things. I was such an idiot. I should have just told you before but I was a coward.”

Joe’s heart clenched in his chest. Nicky was rambling, words tangling. He didn’t make sense. Was he saying this had happened before? “Slow down,” Joe pleaded, going into his Italian to coax him into his own tongue. “You two argued and he…attacked you?”

Nicky cringed. “He wasn’t actually going to do anything. I would have stopped him before if he did. And that’s not the point.”

Joe definitely did think it was the point. “Why hadn’t you stopped him?” Nicky was one of the deadliest people he knew and Booker was just one man.

“He’s family. He’s…yours.”

Joe felt sick. Nicky had let it go on because he thought he had to play soft with Booker? Had to tolerate it? Because he thought of Booker as Joe’s? He turned Nicky’s face up and wished he would look at him, but thought he understood now why he wouldn’t. “ _You_ are mine,” he said, quiet but clear. “It has always been you and I, Nicolo. You are mine and I am yours.” He watched Nicky press his eyes shut and leaned in to kiss the tears that overflowed.

“I love you,” Nicky whispered in Arabic.

Joe sighed in relief he wasn’t sure he was owed right now. The first time Nicky had said those words to him had been a few hundred years into immortality. They hadn’t been whispered in the dark. Nicky had just said them while they were walking, between conversations and smiles. Joe pressed his forehead to Nicky’s now. “I love you,” he said back in Italian.

Nicky shook his head a little, like Joe didn’t understand. He leaned back to look down at his friend, his partner—his life. Nicky gently took his hand from the side of his neck, holding it between them and studying it. He ran his thumb along the back of Joe’s knuckles and if the sensation hadn’t sent shivers through his body, he might have stopped him from lifting it to his lips. His knuckles were violent things and it was awestriking to see someone look at them like that, like they were delicate and loved. And then he remembered a time he had looked at Nicky’s like that, had indulged himself in kissing them and then kissing Nicky. He had kissed Nicky plenty of times in the centuries since but never again like that. He hadn’t even felt rejected when Nicky pulled back and shook his head. Nicky gave him everything he could and it was more than enough.

His heart beat in his throat when he watched Nicky kiss his knuckles, a reflection of that night hundreds of years ago. One of Nicky’s tears slid onto the back of his hand and down to his wrist. When those eyes looked up at him again, they reflected moonlight, begging him to understand. Joe leaned closer, drawn to him, even when his pulse jumped in fear. “Nicky, you don’t owe me this. I don’t know what happened between you and Booker today, but I am never leaving you. I am yours even without—"

Nicky leaned up and kissed him on the lips. It was soft and searching and Joe had never known how to deny Nicky anything—not since those first hundred years anyway. He touched his cheek, kissing him back, marveling at how his mouth opened for him. They had kissed many times in their long lives, but nothing like this. When Nicky’s fingers twisted in the sides of Joe’s shirt, he forced himself to use his damned brain and pull the brakes. He broke the kiss but held Nicky’s face in his hands, still hovering over him on his knees.

“Nicolo,” Joe shook his head gently, watching the moonlight in those eyes. “I need you to explain what happened tonight and then I need you to explain what this is.” Because he couldn’t bear to go any farther only to find out that Nicky was running on some misconception or desperate idea. He had those sometimes. He could not always express himself in words but he would do anything if he thought it was what Joe wanted or needed. “You and Booker were fighting over…this?”

“You,” Nicky agreed. “But I didn’t mean for it to be that.”

“Have you two fought over this before? Has this happened before?” He felt like his brain was having two conversations right now, one about what had happened at the house and the other screaming at him to shut the fuck up and kiss Nicky. Okay, the second part was less of a conversation and more of a battle cry.

“No. No, of course not,” Nicky said like Joe was the one being outrageous.

Joe huffed a laugh, palming Nicky’s cheek. “Take this seriously, please? What I walked in on—”

“We were arguing and Booker realized I have feelings for you. Things escalated from there. I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner but I…I don’t know.” He looked down, cheek still in Joe’s hand. Joe waited. He knew Nicky—knew that it took him time to choose his words when it mattered. “I don’t know when things changed but by the time I realized…I didn’t know how to say anything. I didn’t know if I should.” He forced a smile, his eyes watery. “What did I have to offer? I don’t know anything about—”

Joe tipped his face up, kissing him softly to silence those doubts. Joe had loved Nicky in every way a person could love for almost as long as he could remember. They had been everything to each other—everything else had been passing friendships and romances alongside them. Joe sighed when Nicky parted his lips for him again, his fingers curling in the sides of Joe’s shirt. Nicky and Booker had been at odds for decades. Had that all been because of this? The time lost meant nothing to him, because time had never been lost to him. He had never been without Nicolo—had never lost him, not even for a second. There were few constants of the world, and as far as Yusuf knew they were: the sun, the moon, and Nicolo di Genova.

He stroked the side of Nicky’s neck, kissing him deeper and reveling in how the other half of his soul responded. Their kissing only broke for air, for thoughts, Joe’s head dipped to touch their foreheads together. When had they first done that? He was vaguely sure it had been when they were waiting on their knees for the executioner’s block in the first centuries of their life. But he could not remember who had started it. It was gravity. They leaned into one another—sought one another.

“You can still have others,” Nicky said, breathy and his voice low.

“If I ever thought the others hurt you, I wouldn’t have—”

“No,” Nicky shook his head, looking up at him. “I wasn’t hurt. You gave me everything I wanted. I wasn’t ready for anything else.”

Joe stared back, marveling at the certainty and contentment in those ancient eyes. He brushed his thumb under Nicky’s bottom lip thoughtfully. “Do you want others?” he asked.

Nicky’s expression pulled into a grin that barely contained a laugh. “No,” he answered what to him had sounded like a joke. “I don’t want anyone but you.” His smile tempered when the words escaped him, a flicker of worry in his eyes, his fingers twitching against Joe’s sides. “But if you don’t want—”

“Do not insult me,” Joe laughed, kissing him again, holding his face in his hands. “I have always been yours.”

Nicky sighed so sweetly against his mouth, hands sliding around to his back. There was nothing new about touching each other. They held each other most nights. It was always deeply comforting and thrilling to feel those hands on him. And after all these centuries, this was something different. Nicky had clung to him before, sure, in heartache and sadness, and in joy and laughter, but not like this—not with the want that stuttered his breath from his lips now.

When they broke the kiss to breathe, Joe leaned his forehead to Nicky’s, eyes closed. “You never fail to amaze me,” he whispered.

Nicky shook his head gently under Joe’s. “It’s your reflection in me,” he whispered.

Joe opened his eyes, surprised by those words.

Nicky smiled a little, maybe having surprised himself by saying them. “I am your moon, aren’t I?” he reminded. Joe had been calling him the moon for centuries now. “So, my light is your reflection,” he continued, bashful, words brittle with nerves.

Joe marveled and then sighed deeply and kissed him again. Eventually they would have to go back inside. They could never run off and leave Andy and Nile to deal with Booker alone. But after it was done—after things were settled in the days to come, they would go away for a while. Joe would offer Nicky anywhere in the world and Nicky would choose one of their first homes, on an archipelago off Sicily.

**Author's Note:**

> Got the prompt for this fic on my [tumblr](https://dominimoonbeam.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
